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Following last week's publication of declining National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for nine-year-olds, Education Week's Sarah Schwartz outlines several key takeaways from the data, which underline the steep challenges ahead for schools as the 2022-23 year begins. Notably, lower-performing students on the test were less likely to report that they had support, reliable internet access, or interaction with a teacher, than their higher-performing peers. Experts have also stressed the intertwined nature of academic achievement and social-emotional support, and have argued that academic recovery efforts must also attend to students’ mental health and feelings of belonging in school. Separately, K12 Dive's Naaz Modan presents several metrics which describe how the pandemic contributed to reversed progress and set 9-year-olds back two decades on performance levels across nearly every race and income level.

 

Education Week

K12 Dive

Build Strong Decoders | The Science of Reading in Practice

Research tells us how children best learn to read, but what does this actually look like in classroom practice? In a new webinar Dr. Julia B. Lindsey, an expert in early literacy development, curriculum, and instruction, and author of Reading Above the Fray, will share teacher-approved “essential instructional swaps” backed by the science of reading that educators can implement right away to help students become proficient readers. Dr. Lindsey will demonstrate these efficient and effective decoding routines that can be implemented in 15 minutes or less!

Register for the webinar here:Learn More

 

Parents and politicians are the top sources of stress for teachers, according to survey data from online platform Teachers Pay Teachers. Nearly 40% of teachers ranked politicians as the largest source of “a lot of stress,” followed by parents (36%) and social media (34%). When asked about respect for the profession, teachers in the South were more likely to say respect has decreased compared to two years ago. Florida and Texas saw high proportions of teachers reporting declining respect.

 

K12 Dive

A new survey by EdSource shows that the impacts of California's teacher shortages vary significantly across the state. Every district surveyed but two, Riverside Unified and Trona Joint Unified near Death Valley, reported a shortage of some kind. Even within the same district, some schools — particularly those in wealthier neighborhoods — experienced less teacher turnover and were more likely to start the school year with a full staff. Many districts that serve large numbers of high-needs students meanwhile report severe teacher shortages as the school year began. “Santa Ana Unified continues to experience the same, if not greater, shortage of applicants for both certificated and classified positions,” district spokesperson Fermin Leal says, noting the tight competition among neighboring districts to recruit and hire teachers quickly. Long Beach Unified, where more than 66% of students are low-income, also reported a severe teacher shortage. Even after hiring 277 teachers over the summer, the district still has 45 vacancies. Oakland Unified, which has about 20,000 fewer students than Long Beach, has 34 vacancies after a hiring binge of 474 teachers. San Francisco Unified managed to fill all but eight of 500 vacancies by the start of the school year, in part by offering bonuses of up to $2,000 for teachers to work in special or bilingual education or in academically low-achieving schools. Los Angeles Unified made headlines last week when it announced it had filled 99% of its teacher vacancies. “The teacher shortage is not a mass exodus story. There’s variation,” says Desiree Carver-Thomas, researcher and policy analyst for the Learning Policy Institute, who’s studied the issue. “But there are very significant shortages in some districts, and that’s having a big impact on students.”

 

EdSource

The New York City Education Department is to move 1,000 central and borough-level staff to district offices. Staffers will be pulled from central leadership, First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg’s office, early childhood education, and from borough offices “to more effectively support schools in coordination with district superintendents.” Officials did not share what most of these 1,000 staffers currently do, or how exactly their jobs will change once they move into their new roles, but about 100 of them are social workers from the early childhood division who, once moved to district offices, will focus on “high-need communities,” such as students who are living in temporary housing.

 

Parkchester Times

Deborah D’Souza Vazirani, the Champions for School Health project manager at the National Association of School Nurses, suggests three best practices for school districts looking to improve messaging around vaccines and boosters. Schools should avoid getting "into the weeds" on the complicated science behind the vaccines, she says, instead it’s important for districts to develop and assert simple messaging. Make vaccines easily accessible, D’Souza Vazirani adds, and rely on school nurses as "a trusted messenger." White House officials have said they expect COVID-19 vaccines to be an annual shot like the influenza vaccine. Notably, 60% of children ages 12 to 17 and 30% of children ages five to 11 were fully vaccinated as of August 31, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just 10.4% of children younger than five had received their initial dose of the vaccine.

 

Education Week

Children could be left with long-term eye damage due to spending more than five hours a day glued to screens, experts have warned. The Global Myopia Awareness Coalition, an advisory board under the World Council of Optometry, said: “Certain activities can contribute to the progression of myopia, such as increased screen-time." A study found 13% of parents who haven't taken their children to an eye test thought it would be arranged by the school – but vision screenings at school are not considered a substitute for a comprehensive eye examination. Yet, of those who have never taken their children to the opticians, 35% said their child is displaying at least one symptom of possible eye issues – including being disruptive in school.

 

Daily Express

Education leaders from Harrisonville, Missouri, and Charlottesville, Virginia, share the role their communities play in helping to support pedestrian safety as students walk to and from school. Over the summer, Charlottesville City Schools for example has expanded walk zones to include about 800 more students due of long-term chronic school bus driver shortages, says Beth Cheuk, the district’s community relations coordinator. The National Center for Safe Routes to School has found the barriers preventing more students from walking to school include distance, traffic-related dangers, weather, crime and school policies. Research analyzing the CDC’s 2014 School Health Policies and Practices study found that in most schools, up to 10% of students walked or biked to school on an average day.

 

K12 Dive

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